News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Search

Main menu

Tag Archives: Deval Patrick

The Boston Globe reported yesterday that Massachusetts GovernorDeval Patrick has quietly transferred 500 of his managers into the state public employee union. Governor Patrick will be leaving office after the upcoming election and the governorship is expected to be turned over to the Republicans. This move prevents the Republicans from downsizing the Massachusetts bureaucracy. Placing the managers in the state public employee union will also qualify them for a series of 3 percent raises and insulate them from firing when the next governor takes over.

The article reports:

While smaller clusters of management positions have been converted into union positions in the past, this is the largest sweep into the union in at least two decades, according to administration and union officials.

Rolling the managers into the 22,000-member union will effectively protect them from any house-cleaning that might occur when the next governor takes office in January — a particular likelihood if Republican Charlie Baker were to take over after eight years of Democratic leadership.

Union employees generally have to be removed “for cause,” while managers serve at will.

Obviously, this move will make downsizing the Massachusetts state government more difficult for the new governor. It will also increase the cost of state government, although Patrick administration officials have stated that the cost to the state would be “less than $500,000.” When did we reach the point where $500,000 was not significant?

Holly Robichaud posted an article in the Boston Herald today about the tech tax passed by the legislature and the governor earlier this year. It was repealed on Friday. It was understood from the beginning of the negotiations on the tech tax that the law would be confusing and detrimental to businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. However, the governor and the legislature chose to pass it anyway. Now the elected officials in the Massachusetts House and Senate find themselves in the embarrassing position of having to explain why they voted for the tax to begin with and why they repealed it.

Ms. Robichaud quotes many of the very interesting explanations in her article:

Rep. Danielle Gregoire was against the tech tax, for the entire tax package and then against the tech tax. To cover up her inconsistency and having more positions on an issue than John Kerry, Gregoire wrote to her local paper attempting to spin the record. According to her, opponents are “using parliamentary minutiae for political gain.”

How dare her political opponents protect the interests of the voters.

Another interesting explanation:

Rep. Carolyn Dykema, whom I have worked against, tweeted “impact of tech tax more broad than understood. Will have ripple effect across economy.” Dykema voted against holding a public hearing on the tech tax, then voted to strip the tech tax out of the bill, then voted three times for the tax package, and then voted to repeal the tech tax.

This makes my head spin.

And another one:

Rep. Diana DiZoglio went with the Clinton defense of blaming politics. “It is my hope that any political games over this would be stopped. My Republican colleagues and I were on the same page regarding this tax vote. Unfortunately, we differed on whether or not to sustain the governor’s veto.” Let me translate — Republicans knew to vote against overriding the veto and I caved to pressure from the speaker.

As long as the voters of Massachusetts keep electing these people, this will continue. We have the leadership we deserve.

Massachusetts made state history July 29th by implementing a new gas tax increase that is pegged to inflation. The new tax that takes effect Wednesday, following an override of Governor Patrick’s veto, adds 3 cents to the state’s already relatively high 21 cents per gallon tax. Adding in federal taxes, the total tax on a gallon of gasoline in Massachusetts is now 42.4 cents per gallon. Depending upon which grade is chosen, drivers now pay about 11 percent in taxes for the gas they use. That is the highest tax rate of any product one can buy in Massachusetts except cigarettes. Smokers also saw a one dollar tax increase per pack in this new bill.

Please note–THE GAS TAX INCREASE IS PEGGED TO INFLATION. This means that elected officials in Boston can avoid responsibility for future tax increases. The tax on gasoline will automatically increase, and the legislators can say, “I didn’t do that–it was automatic.” Governor Patrick vetoed this bill–therefore he can claim that he did not vote for the tax increases in it (of course he knew that the Democrat legislature would override his veto and still be voted back into office in the next election).

Until the Massachusetts voters begin to vote the current legislators out of office, they can expect more of this kind of shenanigans. It’s time to wake up and put people in office who actually care about the burden they are placing on taxpayers.

But the MBTA’s share of pension contributions increased 42 percent between 2007 and 2011, from $30 million to $52.3 million. Those “contributions” come from you, dear T rider or state taxpayer. Don’t you think you have a right to know what your money is buying?

If Gov. Deval Patrick signs the budget provision as written, you will.

Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton) has been the leader on several taxpayer-friendly legislative initiatives since she has been in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. She has worked to end fraud in the electronic benefit transfer card program (EBT) and to eliminate fraud in the Mass Health medical assistance program.

The article reminds us that subjecting the MBTA pension program to the public records law is a step forward, but it also suggests that the governor and legislature should also be subject to that law.

The Massachusetts state Senate passed a bill last night that will raise taxes on the residents of Massachusetts about $500 million dollars. The taxes will take the form of increases in gasoline, cigarette, and corporate taxes. So tell me again why a business would want to relocate to Massachusetts?

The plan calls for raising the gas tax by 3 cents and tying future increases to inflation, increasing the cigarette tax by $1 perpack, imposing new taxes on computer system design services, allowing the MBTA to sell naming rights to stations and redirecting funds from other areas of the budget.

The bill is a blow to Gov. Deval Patrick, who had been seeking $1.9 billion in new taxes for transportation and education. The House version of the bill also raises taxes by $500 million, but the Senate — after a veto threat — pulled money from other areas of the budget to bolster revenues closer to the $1 billion sought by Patrick. Last night, the governor seemed resigned to the diminished scope of the package.

Barbara Anderson, well known in Massachusetts for her work against tax hikes, posted the following on her Facebook page:

From media reports, the Senate Transportation bill that passed yesterday includes a 3-cent gas tax, a $1 tax on cigarettes, and $244 million in utility and business-related computer fees. Sen. Bob Hedlund, who appeared briefly at the rally during a Senate break, led the Republican effort to remove language indexing the gas tax to inflation beginning in 2015, but his amendment failed. Watch that tax on computer fees: very unfair to small businesses, and could be the beginning of expanding the sales tax to other services.

Raising taxes in less than ideal economic times is not a good idea. This move by the Senate will slow the growth of jobs and opportunity in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is not a good idea.

There is, however, something good in this tax bill (if it actually happens). The article in the Boston Herald reports:

The bill, which is designed to pour money into the highway system as well as the perennially cash-strapped T, includes two amendments that would pull the veil off the T’s pension system after years of scrutiny by lawmakers, judges and law enforcement — and a week of Herald reports.

Sen. William Brownsberger (D-Belmont) said he filed the legislation to make the MBTA Retirement Fund subject to the state’s public records law and require the board to post pensions payments on the state’s Open Checkbook website after he saw the Herald’s reports last week on the secretive pension system. He said he filed similar legislation about four years ago that failed to gain attention.

If the transparency actually occurs, it will be a good thing for the taxpayers of Massachusetts.

In Massachusetts you can always depend on the leaders of the Commonwealth to want to raise taxes. This is loosely related to the fact that the majority of the leaders in the executive and legislative branches of government In Massachusetts are Democrats. Well, this year is no exception to the rule.

When initially announced last week, Patrick pounced by stating that no Democrats lost their seats because they voted for his sales tax increase in 2009. There are Deval’s statements and then there are the facts. In 2010, the GOP doubled their numbers in the House.

It might be a good idea for Democrats to remember the consequences of raising the sales tax as they prepare to vote on the present tax bill.

Ms. Robichaud also notes that Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh has publicly warned Democrats that they will face challenges in primary elections if they do not support higher taxes.

I have lived in Massachusetts since 1978. I have spent a certain amount of that time wondering what in the world was in the water that caused the residents to vote the way they do. We are responsible for the government we have–we elected it. Until the voters of this state wake up and decide to protect their income from the kind of fraud we see in the EBT program and the constant demand for more of our money from the statehouse and legislature, the political theater surrounding tax hikes will continue.

I will be leaving Massachusetts by the end of this year and resettling to a place that has more respect for the fact that I wish to keep the money I earn. I will continue to blog about the perils of big government and its endless appetite for taxpayers’ money, but I will be glad to be in a place where that appetite is slightly smaller. More to follow…

…Grossman went on to deny that it costs money to give these breaks. To quote him: “(Opponents) say it will cost us money. Once again, this is absolutely wrong.”

The article points out that in-state-tuition breaks are subsidized by the taxpayers of Massachusetts and do actually cost money.

The article points out:

Vaughn (Jessica M. Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies) estimates that taxpayers are spending anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000 per illegal immigrant student, depending on the school. Using her estimates, if just 100 illegals get the break, it will costs us $300,000 to $1.5 million for one year. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, more than 225,000 illegals live in the commonwealth. So it will be more than 100 students.

My questions here is simple, “Why should an American citizen from a state other than Massachusetts pay more to go to college in Massachusetts than someone who is here illegally?”

On Monday, Forbes Magazine posted an article about the changes Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has made to the health care plan originally passed under Governor Mitt Romney. Because the costs of the original plan have spiraled out of control, Governor Patrick is working to slow the growth of the cost of medical care in Massachusetts. His heart may be in the right place, but his plan will do considerable damage to an already broken system.

The article reports:

Insurers and large hospitals in Massachusetts will also have to pay $225 million in surcharges over four years, starting in 2013. The measure’s backers project savings of $200 billion over 15 years.

Massachusetts State Rep. Steven Levy (R-Marlborough) has noted that the law contains no specifics as to how the savings it mandates will actually come into being. He’s also called the gross state product a “random” number with which to straitjacket the healthcare budget.

The article further explains that part of the changes to the law include the creation of two new state agencies–the Health Policy Commission and the Center for Health Information Analysis. How is it possible to save money when you have created two new agencies staffed with people who have to be paid, office space that has to be rented, and office supplies that have to be purchased?

The article further reports:

Witness the impact that previous rounds of government-directed “reform” have already had. A study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that the Bay State’s 2006 health reform package had been associated with rapid new hiring in the Massachusetts health system.

That might sound like good news. But it wasn’t doctors or nurses getting hired. Rather, it was scores of administrative workers, who were needed to process all the new paperwork mandated by the reform effort.

I hate to be difficult, but is anyone concerned about the medical care for the patients in this scenario?

The article reports:

…The Massachusetts Medical Society has predicted that Gov. Patrick’s law will force many hospitals to cut staff and result in delayed care for some patients.

Bay Staters already have to wait 45 days on average for an appointment with a family medicine doctor, according to the Society. That’s a 50 percent jump in wait time since 2010.

If the Massachusetts heath care reform bill is the model for Obamacare, we need to pay attention as Massachusetts shows us why we need to end Obamacare!

The article points out that before Mitt Romney became governor, Massachusetts had a number of laws that resulted in a very expensive healthcare system. Governor Romney was attempting to rein in those costs. Unfortunately, he was dealing with an 85 percent Democratic legislature that totally twisted his ideas and passed something very different than what he had envisioned.

The article points out:

Romney’s idea was to permit Massachusetts insurers to sell catastrophic plans. As Avik Roy explained in Forbes, “Shorn of the costly mandates and restrictions originating in earlier state laws, these plans, called ‘Commonwealth Care Basic,’ could cost much less. Romney also proposed merging the non-group and small-group markets, so as to give individuals access to the more cost-effective plans available to small businesses.” Romney’s plan would also have involved a degree of cost sharing so that those receiving subsidies would have an incentive to minimize their consumption.

This is very different from the plan that was eventually passed. The law was later changed under Governor Deval Patrick, requiring insurance companies to offer three tiers of coverage — all of them far beyond catastrophic care.

The article further reminds us:

Romney’s proposed reforms included fraud prevention measures for Medicaid, requiring the income of both parents to be considered in children’s Medicaid eligibility, medical malpractice tort reform, and giving individuals the same treatment as small businesses in the purchase of health plans. He envisioned a system of increased competition and choice.

Had the bill that Governor Romney wanted passed, healthcare in Massachusetts would be a good example for the nation. The plan the legislature passed and Governor Patrick modified is a nightmare for the sate and the nation.

No, this is not an article about President Obama and healthcare–it is an article about the misuse of the cards given to welfare recipients. In Massachusetts we have what are called EBT cards, which allow people collecting welfare to purchase food for their families.

While signing the state’s $32.5 billion budget yesterday, Patrick rejected an outside section containing the welfare benefits card reforms that had been hammered out with bi-partisan support in the House and Senate — an effort spearheaded by House Speaker Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop).

The purpose of the EBT card is to allow people in need to provide food and necessities to themselves and their families. To allow these cards to be used for non-necessities is unfair to the taxpayers who may be going without these luxuries in order to pay their tax bills!

It was a foregone conclusion that Ms. Warren, who has been widely perceived as the presumptive nominee, would win the endorsement. The question was how many votes her rival, Marisa DeFranco, would receive. Ms. DeFranco, an immigration lawyer, needed 15 percent of the vote to earn a spot on the ballot.

Ms. Warren began the day with some good news with two new polls — from The Boston Globe and from Western New England University — showing her running essentially even with Mr. Brown.

Massachusetts is pretty much a one-party state, so I suppose it is not surprising to see Ms. Warren running even with Scott Brown, but I do find that somewhat hard to believe. In recent weeks it has become obvious that Ms. Warren has not been entirely honest about certain aspects of her heritage that she has used to advance her career. A lot of people I have talked to have been totally turned off to her as a candidate because of the ciaims of Indian heritage that may or may not be true. Scott Brown is likeable, personable (and frankly a whole lot less conservative than I would prefer), but he has never claimed to be a conservative, and I believe he has always voted for what he thought was in the best interest of the people he was elected to represent. Scott Brown is the best choice for the voters of Massachusetts–it will be interesting to see if they make that choice.

Here’s a reality check: During the same decade that Mr. Gore and the IPCC dominated the environmental debate, global carbon-dioxide emissions rose by 28.5%.

Those increases reflect soaring demand for electricity, up by 36%, which in turn fostered a 47% increase in coal consumption. (Natural-gas use increased by 29% while oil use grew by 13%.) Carbon-dioxide emissions are growing because people around the world understand the essentiality of electricity to modernity. And for many countries, the cheapest way to produce electrons is by burning coal.

China’s emissions jumped by 123% over the past decade and now exceed those of the U.S. by more than two billion tons per year. Africa’s carbon-dioxide emissions jumped by 30%, Asia’s by 44%, and the Middle East’s by a whopping 57%. Put another way, over the past decade, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions—about 6.1 billion tons per year—could have gone to zero and yet global emissions still would have gone up.

The science is not settled, not by a long shot. Last month, scientists at CERN, the prestigious high-energy physics lab in Switzerland, reported that neutrinos might—repeat, might—travel faster than the speed of light. If serious scientists can question Einstein’s theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Please follow the link to the Wall Street Journal to read the entire article. Global warming is NOT settled science.

Meanwhile, back to Massachusetts. Many of the solar and wind energy companies have received grants from the state and from the federal stimulus program. When you look at the officers of these companies, you find that many of them went from state government to ‘green energy’ and took government money with them. There are some questionable connections here. In March of this year, the Hawaii Free Press reported:

Paul Gaynor, CEO of First Wind stood comfortably with Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie, Rep Mazie Hirono, and HECO CEO Dick Rosenblum at the grand opening of the Kahuku Wind energy project on Oahu’s North Shore Thursday. As he should.

First Wind–formerly known as UPC Wind–got its start in wind energy by launching Italy’s IVPC–a company now subject to a record breaking asset seizure by Italian police. The Financial TimesSeptember 14, 2010 explains:

Please follow the links to read the entire story. Paul Gaynor was appointed by Governor Patrick to be Co-chair of “The Climate Protection Advisory Committee” under the Global Warming Solutions Act.

I think it’s time to re-evaluation the entire ‘green energy’ idea. We don’t need another place for politicians to line their pockets at the expense of taxpayers.

For more information on the ‘follow the money’ aspect of green energy, see rightwinggranny post of August 14, 2010. Also, please understand that Solyndra was counting on the passage of Cap and Trade legislation so that they could increase the price of their product and make a profit. If Cap and Trade had passed through Congress, we would probably have never heard of Solyndra. That may be one reason President Obama is attempting to virtually pass Cap and Trade by using EPA regulations to do the same thing.

Nicholas Guaman, 34, of Milford, a native of Ecuador, allegedly was driving drunk when the vehicle he was driving struck and killed Mr. Denice, dragging him a quarter of a mile. Mr. Guaman has been charged with motor vehicle homicide and is being investigated and held on a detainer by federal immigration officials.

Earlier yesterday, outside the county jail in West Boylston where Mr. Guaman is being held on $100,000 cash bail, Worcester County Sheriff Lewis G. Evangelidis announced he had signed an application to join the Secure Communities Act program, bypassing Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s reluctance to enroll the state in the federal program.

The police estimated that 2,000 to 2,500 people, not including those in a motorcycle procession attended the vigil. Matthew Denice was a recent graduate of Framingham State University. A week before his death, Matthew Denice had begun working for The Coding Source.

It is truly a shame that this young man is dead. It is time to look closely not only at immigration laws but at drunk driving laws. This was an avoidable tragedy.